In order for infants to make sense of the world they have to perceive it, and research into the development of sensory and perceptual abilities is one of the most exciting and important areas of infancy research.
Originally published in 1998, the aim of this book was both to reflect current knowledge of perceptual development and to point to some of the many questions that remained unanswered at the time. The study of perceptual development is now a sophisticated science. The majority of the chapters tell a fascinating detective story: the way in which infants perceive and understand the world as they develop. Each of the major sections is prefaced by introductory comments, and the book will still be useful for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, researchers, and other professionals who have an interest in early perceptual development and in infancy in general.
Table of Contents:
List of Contributors. Preface. Part I – How the Visual System Develops: Normal and Abnormal Development Introduction 1. The Development of Basic and Visual Abilities Louise Hainline 2. Abnormal Visual Development Merrick J.Moseley, Meir Neufield and Alistair R. Fielder Part II – Visual Development: From Sensation to Perception Introduction 3. Nativism and Empiricism: The History of Two Ideas Ian Gordon and Alan Slater 4. The Competent Infant: Innate Organisation and Early Learning in Infant Visual Perception Alan Slater 5. Object and Spatial Categorisation in Young Infants: “What” and “Where” in Early Visual Perception Paul C. Quinn 6. The Development of Infant Causal Perception Leslie B. Cohen, Geoffrey Amsel, Melissa A. Redford and Marianella Casasola 7. Object Perception and Object Knowledge in Young Infants: A View from Studies of Visual Development Scott P. Johnson Part III – Perception of Social Stimuli Introduction 8. Infant Social Perception Darwin W. Muir and Jacqueline Nadel 9. Discrimination and Categorisation of Facial Expressions of Emotion During Infancy Michelle de Haan and Charles A. Nelson Part IV – Perception of Speech Introduction 10. Foetal Responses to Auditory and Speech Stimuli Jean-Pierre Lecanuet 11. Speech Perception During the First Year Peter W. Jusczyk, Derek Houston and Mara Goodman 12. Three Methods for Testing Infant Speech Perception Janet F. Werker, Rushen Shi, Renee Desjardins, Judith E. Pegg, Linda Polka and Michelle Patterson. Author Index. Subject Index.
About the Author :
Alan Slater was Associate Professor at Exeter University. He is the author of over 130 scientific articles, the majority of which are on infant development. He has collaborated with many internationally renowned infancy researchers and is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science for ‘sustained and distinguished contributions to psychological science’.
Review :
Reviews for the original edition:
“This edited collection is just what was needed, both for the advanced student and for the mature researchers. The authors are leading researchers in their fields, and together they present a rich source of authoritative and up-to-date information on infant perception which will be enormously useful both to those entering the field of infancy as researchers, and to those who already work in the field but wish to bring themselves up-to-date on research topics outside their speciality … I look forward to having my own copy of the book: it will certainly be on my essential reading list.” – Gavin Bremner, University of Lancaster, UK
“In just over thirty years of study, infancy research has moved out of its own infancy and into the maturity of a sophisticated psychological science with scientists attacking scientific questions from the philosophical, to the methodological, to the descriptive, to the explanatory. This book is one tribute to developmental psychology in general, and a special tribute to progress which has been made in a special field, infant perception.” – Marc Bornstein, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, USA
